Tesla delivers first electric cars to China

A Chinese guest poses for a photo by a Tesla "supercharger" on a car handover ceremony in Shanghai as American electric carmaker Tesla Motors delivers their Model S cars to its first buyers in China on April 23, 2014. (AFP Photo) / AFP

Tesla Motors has finally made its first delivery of new all-electric and zero emission sedans to customers in China, after receiving the first orders in August last year.

The first delivery consisted of eight vehicles, says the
Financial Times (FT).

“At some point in the next three or four years we’ll be
establishing local manufacturing in China,” Bloomberg quotes
Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive.

The company promises it will build a nationwide network of
charging stations and service centers as fast as it can.

One of the terms of the California-based company selling its
zero-emission vehicles was the availability of car charging
equipment installed in the customer’s home or office. The lack of
infrastructure for electric vehicles prevented the company from
early entrance in the world’s largest market for passenger cars
where about 18 million units were sold last year.

“We’ve delayed some of the customer deliveries just for a few
months in order to ensure that when they got their car they would
have a great experience and some of them were a bit upset about
that,” the Financial Times quotes Musk. “I met with them
earlier today and apologized. . . I think we’ve resolved the
issue.”

Despite concerns over the scarcity of Tesla service centers
inland the company is proceeding with deliveries.

“We will ship them the car even if the service center is
pretty far away,” Tesla’s CEO said. “We prefer them to
have the car with service that is not going to be as good, rather
than wait and have service where we prefer it to be.”

To compare, “nine out of ten Tesla Owners in North America
live within 100 miles of a Tesla service center,” says the
manufacturer’s site banner.

The average 85 kilowatt-hour battery Tesla Model S in the US
costs $71,000 before federal tax credits. The same car in China
will costs $118,000 as shipping charges, value-added taxes and
import duties increase the price tag.

Tesla hopes to partner with two national electronic grid
operators says Musk. However the California-based company is
thinking on investing several hundred million dollars in a
charging infrastructure in China including its own solar panels.

“The main reason for doing this is not to be independent of
the grid but to have a charging solution that is
sustainable,” says the chief executive.

Meanwhile the appearance of the electric charging stations may
increase quickly as industrial air pollution is a major problem
and the authorities are urging motorists to turn electric.

Musk says the company is “still in the early stages” in
China. According to Chinese law the government enforces a 50
percent foreign ownership cap, requiring cooperation with local
producers in order to build the car in China. “We want to hit
puberty before we start dating,” Musk said.